{"id":153897,"date":"2024-08-09T10:33:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T01:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelug.com\/blog\/?post_type=global&p=153897"},"modified":"2024-08-09T14:36:32","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T05:36:32","slug":"i-survived-omm","status":"publish","type":"global","link":"https:\/\/bluelug.com\/blog\/global\/i-survived-omm\/","title":{"rendered":"I survived OMM."},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do people care about winning or losing?<\/p>\n

What is winning and what is losing?<\/p>\n

Is it a silly concept created by humans to make us superior to each other?<\/p>\n

Is it a natural instinct from when our ancestors had to survive the cruel world?<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I don’t like the word winning and losing. I simply think it makes more sense to appreciate the joy you get from doing what you love instead of competing with people with the same interests.<\/p>\n

That being said, I attended a checkpoint race Called OMM.<\/p>\n

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Hakuba Village, the venue of the event was beautiful. I’ve heard multiple stories of this place but man, everywhere I look had a pretty view.<\/p>\n

Taking a deep breath while pedaling gave me a very relaxing feeling, a kind of feeling you can never experience around Tokyo.<\/p>\n

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I wish I had taken much more photos of the people who I met at the booths, but it was pretty cool to say what’s up to a lot of the people from shops we are friends with and see bikes that I wasn’t aware of.<\/p>\n

Being a member of the online store team, I hardly have the chance to meet people from other shops or communities, so it was quite nice to get outside and meet new people to connect.<\/p>\n

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I was also saved by Circles for having a Bedrock Sandal in my size. The previous sandals I had were killing my pinky toe. Shoutout to Circles for distributing Bedrock in Japan. (I’m extremely sorry for my disgusting feet pic)<\/p>\n

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The BBQ at night was also pretty chill. We got rained out but camping makes rain less annoying for me. Not unless it’s not a storm.<\/p>\n

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The most thing I was stoked on is that I was able to sleep in a tent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Waking up in the morning and realizing that I had slept throughout the night was almost touching.
\nIf you are one of those people like me who gets anxious sleeping in tents, I highly recommend applying a sleep mask or a bandana to cover your eyes. I think ear plugs will make things even better.<\/p>\n

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It was raining in the morning, but munching on a grilled Sandwich that my homie made, while listening to the sound of the rain under the tarp was somewhat cozy.<\/p>\n

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“OMM! OMM!!”<\/p>\n

The crowd of riders shout as they hype each other up to start the race in the rain. Gotta admit that this was pretty epic moment.<\/p>\n

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As you can see, I was really enjoying the race.<\/p>\n

All jokes aside, this was the first time I spent hours on the saddle and we were constantly riding in a pace I would never ride in, so it was pretty tough, but my team mates were hyping me up so I was able to finish.<\/p>\n

This is a checkpoint race so speed isn’t the key and it’s not a super serious event, so it’s really up to your team to ride hard or to take it easy, but my team mates were super into getting many points, so I tried super hard to keep up with them to not let them down.<\/p>\n

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Made it to the finish line in time. I didn’t even know or care about the results. All I cared is that I did it.<\/p>\n

Staring at my dirty bike with the feeling of accomplishment was not bad. Feeling this post high school basketball practice type of feeling at this age was pretty cool.<\/p>\n

To put a conclusion to my OMM report, I think it’s safe to say I enjoyed it overall. I met with new people, got to ride this amazing place called Hakuba Village and riding this kind of un-real terrain gave me more curiosity towards bicycles. What if I had drop bars? How would have the ride felt with SBDs? The list goes on.<\/p>\n

In this type of job, it’s over when you lose curiosity. It’s very important to try out new things in life. That’s how you don’t become a grumpy old head. Just going to one event gave me a lot of inspirations, so I’d like to thank OMM and the organizers for holding such a sick event annually.<\/p>\n